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IAG Group airlines plan Croatia expansion

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Members of the International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG), which include Iberia, British Airways and Aer Lingus, plan to increase their operations to several cities across Croatia this summer season.

The growth will be headed by Spain's Iberia, which will strengthen its seasonal operations to Zagreb, Dubrovnik and Split. The airline will maintain up to eight weekly flights from Madrid to the Croatian capital, an increase from five weekly last year. It will also bring forward the resumption of the service by a month to early May. Furthermore, Iberia will add four weekly flights to Dubrovnik, resulting in double daily operations during the peak summer season, while Split will also benefit with daily services to be maintained from Madrid this year, up from three per week in 2017. The resumption of its flights to both Dubrovnik and Split will also be brought forward. In a statement to EX-YU Aviation News, the airline said, "We will be offering 48% more seats to Dubrovnik in the summer of 2018 compared to last year. We will resume our flights from Madrid to the Croatian city on Easter and will extend them until October. We will also return flights between Madrid and Zagreb, offering 79% more seats this year than the previous one. The flights will be resumed in May and extended until October. Normally, we operate the route from June to September. Finally, capacity to Split will grow by 189% in 2018".

British Airways will continue to grow its number of flights to Croatia this year after adding Pula as its fourth destination in the country in 2017. The British carrier will operate twelve weekly flights between London Gatwick and Dubrovnik this summer, up from nine last year. Furthermore, the airline will strengthen its services from Heathrow to Split by introducing an extra weekly flight for a total of five. On the other hand, it will retain the same number of operations from London to Pula at two per week. The carrier is also considering adding flights between Heathrow and Zagreb to make up for Croatia Airlines' service reduction on the route. British Airways' leisure unit, British Airways Holidays, has listed Croatia in its top eighteen must-see destinations this summer. In a statement to EX-YU Aviation News, the airline said, "We are pleased with the performance of our routes from Croatia to London, which has resulted in additional flights and capacity this year. Our customers on these routes range from passengers travelling point-to-point to those taking advantage of our extensive international network which serves 199 destinations".

Aer Lingus will follow its partners and increase frequencies on all three of its destinations in Croatia. The Irish carrier will add an extra flight from Dublin to Dubrovnik, resulting in daily operations, while services to both Split and Pula will also be increased by one additional service for a total of three and four per week respectively. "We are delighted to announce the further strengthening of our network to Croatia with these additional flights. The extra frequencies to Dubrovnik, Split and Pula will allow us to continue offering the choice, service and value that delivered our Skytrax four-star accreditation and we look forward to welcoming guests on board these services to Croatia in 2018", the airline said. Asked whether it could add Zagreb to its network in the foreseeable future, the Irish carrier noted, "Flights could be introduced if we determine that this route matches our customers’ needs, is economically viable and makes a positive financial contribution to our business as a whole".

Probably in 2020, not sooner, next year they'll probably start in early April, with flights ending in late October, that's 7 months, 8 weekly flights.

in 2020, they'll see how things are, and perhaps have 3 weekly flights year round and during summers (4th 10th) add additional 5 aircraft.

Iberia is very slow to go year round, they fly to many central European destinations only on a seasonal basis, Budapest and Prague where they went year round only recently flew for many years only on a seasonal basis. They stopped Warsaw and Bucharest, after flying there seasonaly.

That fact Iberia is flying to Zagreb 8 times weekly this year, is amazing, they only have 79 aircraft in the fleet, retiring 17 A340s this and following year.

Aer Lingus is also short of aircraft, otherwise they'd fly to Zagreb without a doubt. 20 000 Croats live in Ireland, 83000 Irish visitors to Croatia in 2017, 20 000 in Zagreb. That certainly warrants a direct link between two cities. Time will tell when this happens.

On a positive note, BA plans double daily to Zagreb mon-fri and daily sat, for total of 11 weekly, they'll be announcing their plans in late feb.

Wow recently stated they will not open any scheduled route further from KEF than MUC/SZG simply because then they cannot fit it into their Europe/North America waves which is vital for them (although they are LCC). Only exception was TLV as far as I remember.

Thanks Anon 10.18 & 10.20 AMBooked on OU. I thought it was cheap and includes baggage. I think there was a JU option for about Euro 12 less. Didn’t realise OU flying ZAG to MXP? Booked at Euro 147 which I thought was a lot? Cheaper than a train I guess. Greetings from Australia.

Not really? So, until yesterday, it was possible for Air Serbia to announce Toronto, but it's not possible for another, non-European airline to announce new route to Croatia? Possibly not, but we'll see in the next few weeks.

Well, to be honest, if is there huge demand I believe Norwegian will do something about it. At least they have enough "birds" to support that route and increase weekly flights...for the summer 2018. they will fly to Zagreb with the same number of weekly seats like last year...

easyjet, I think it was for two seasons, but maybe I am wrong. But they had something like 6 flights for the whole summer. I was very interested in those flights, but unfortunately it seems that Pula has no allure for people under Firenze. Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik, they all have flights to Rome.

I also think it could work for them but I doubt it will happen anytime soon. They just started last year and are focusing on Spain at the moment, which, btw is about to become the second largest tourist market in the world.

well Mostar is almost confirmed and we all know for it. Dublin and Sofia are also in Croatia Airlines plan. I believe they will fly on those routes from Zagreb and start some destinations from the coast - of course, Split or Dubrovnik, other is not important for OU...

I think the majority of airlines have already announced flights for this summer. The novelty is Aegean to Zagreb and all the big increases on the coast, as well as the new routes which are listed on the right. The only one that is still supposed to announce new flights is Croatia Airlines.

I always found it such a shame that BA has degraded its service so much. It's idiotic that OU is reducing and eventually withdrawing from LHR now that it has the upper hand in terms of overall quality of product.

It didn't work out for them a couple of years back. That is correct. But the situation has changed significantly. Quite expensive Monarch (for a LCC) proved the success and potential on that route. No doubt now U2/W6 would be successful. ZAG is now also offering nice incentives.

@ Admin, aren't there in total 9 passengers airlines that are members of IAG?

However in the article it says: "Members of the International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG), which include Iberia, British Airways and Aer Lingus" so it appears there are only 3. Most importantly, Vueling has been forgotten, and they do already serve quite some routes to Croatia.

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